w were sharply defined, the checkered foliage of the trees
was flung in black against the yellow-white wall of the house with the
lions, and the green-latticed gallery which we had watched the night
before seemed silent and deserted. I knocked at the gate, and presently
a bright-turbaned gardienne opened it.

Was Monsieur de Saint-Gre at home. The gardienne looked me over, and
evidently finding me respectable, replied with many protestations of
sorrow that he was not, that he had gone with Mamselle very early that
morning to his country place at Les Iles. This information I extracted
with difficulty, for I was not by any means versed in the negro patois.

As I walked back to Madame Bouvet's I made up my mind that there was
but the one thing to do, to go at once to Monsieur de Saint-Gre's
plantation. Finding Madame still waiting in the gallery, I asked her to
direct me thither.

"You have but to follow the road that runs southward along the levee,
and some three leagues will bring you to it, Monsieur. You will inquire
for Monsieur de Saint-Gre."

"Can you direct me to Mr. Daniel Clark's?" I asked.

"The American merchant and banker, the friend and associate of the
great General Wilkinson whom you sent down to us last year? Certainly,
Monsieur. He will no doubt give you better advice than I on this
matter."

I found Mr. Clark in his counting-room, and I had not talked with
him five minutes before I began to suspect that, if a treasonable
understanding existed between Wilkinson and the Spanish government, Mr.
Clark was innocent of it. He being the only prominent American in the
place, it was natural that Wilkinson should have formed with him a
business arrangement to care for the cargoes he sent down. Indeed, after
we had sat for some time chatting together, Mr. Clark began himself to
make guarded inquiries on this very subject. Did I know Wilkinson? How
was his enterprise of selling Kentucky products regarded at home? But
I do not intend to burden this story with accounts of a matter which,
though it has never been wholly clear, has been long since fairly
settled in the public mind. Mr. Clark was most amiable, accepted my
statement that I was travelling for pleasure, and honored Monsieur
Chouteau's bon (for my purchase of the miniature had deprived me of
nearly all my ready money), and said that Mr. Temple and I would need
horses to get to Les Iles.

"And unless you purpose going back to Kentucky by keel boat, or